Ecstasy. It was once considered a favor of the gods, a divine gift that could lift mortals out of ordinary reality and into the higher world. The transformative fire of ecstasy would burn away the barriers between ourselves and our souls, bestowing on us a greater understanding of our relation to ourselves and to universe.
We like to think that the progress is linear and we can go only in one direction. This post is not about the technology is "bad", there is not such a thing in Vedic though as "good" and "bad", since it is a non-dual philosophy. What matters is context.